Software developers may wish to test various features and situations within a software application to determine whether the application is performing as specified. One technique is to perform manual testing, in which a developer or user causes the application to perform various functions, and observes or reports on the results. Based on those results, the application may be modified to perform differently. Manual testing techniques typically are laborious and relatively time consuming, and may not be effective in identifying every defect or other functionality that may need to be modified. Automated testing techniques, typically referred to as “test automation,” are used to automatically perform such testing. Test automation often involves developing other software applications or environments that can automatically execute the software application that is being tested. Automated tests typically may be performed relatively quickly more reliably than manual techniques.
Within test automation, significant time may be spent during setup and tear-down on individual test case runs, i.e., creating the specific situation or state of the software application that is to be tested. Setup often requires elaborate processes to reach a particular execution state that the test case is intended to validate.